Lynn Schulman and Aleda Gagarin (via respective campaigns)
June 23, 2021 By Allie Griffin
Lynn Schulman and Aleda Gagarin are in a tight race for the Council District 29 seat, early election results show.
Schulman and Gagarin are leading the seven other candidates in the race to represent Rego Park, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens and Richmond Hill, but the race is too close to call.
The race is historic as the two frontrunners are both queer women in what some consider to be a more conservative district than others in the city.
Schulman, an activist and attorney who previously served on Queens Community Board 6, has a narrow lead with 22.07 percent of in-person, first-choice votes. Gagarin, a non-profit leader, activist and the preferred progressive candidate, follows with 20.6 percent, according to the Board of Elections (BOE) unofficial results.
Coming in third is David Aronov, who secured 13.39 percent of first-choice votes.
Donghui Zang generated 11.40 percent of the vote, while the remaining candidates — Avi Cyperstein, Edwin Wong, Douglas Shapiro, Eliseo Labayen and Sheryl Fetik — earned 10 percent or less, with 95.58 percent of BOE scanners reported.
The percentages are only based on voters’ first-choice picks from in-person voting on Election Day and during early voting.
I’d also like to acknowledge a wonderful thing: the top two are capable, accomplished, LGBTQIA+ women in what was dubbed a too conservative district.@schulman2021 and I don’t agree on everything, but I do respect her and her years of public service. And we had some fun, too. 🧵
— Aleda Gagarin for NYC Council D29 (@AledaGagarin) June 23, 2021
Neither Schulman or Gagarin earned more than 50 percent of the first-choice votes, so the city’s new ranked-choice voting system will be used to determine the winner.
The candidate with the least amount of first-choice votes — Fetik in this case — will be eliminated and people who chose her for their top choice will have their second choice counted. This process will continue until one candidate receives a majority of votes or more than 50 percent.
That means the race could easily go to either Schulman or Gagarin once voters’ second, third, fourth and fifth choice votes are counted. Absentee and affidavit ballots — which have yet to be tallied — could also impact the outcome.
“Now the wait begins. Thank you to all who came out and voted,” Gagarin wrote on Twitter. “We’re hopeful that when all the votes are counted our people powered movement will prevail.”
District residents may not know the official winner of D-29 race for weeks.
The BOE will release the results of the ranked choice tabulation in one week — on Tuesday, June 29 — and will continue to update the results each week as absentee ballots come in, until the board certifies the results.
The BOE is not expected to certify the results of the elections until the week of July 12 or later to allow time for absentee ballots to come in.
The winner of the primary election will also need to win the November general election to become the district’s council member. That person will replace term-limited Council Member Karen Koslowitz.
(New York City Board of Elections)
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6 Comments
Whoever would stop the construction of the oversized, beyond ugly and disgusting houses being built in the area is who I hope wins.
I hate to sound like Trump, but Queens is basically a conservative borough, and for 2 progressives to be in the lead makes me seriously wonder if our election process has been tampered with.
What’s your proof for Queens being a conservative borough? It’s the most diverse borough in the city and has voted blue in the last umpteen presidential and gubernatorial elections.
Where’s your proof that the “election process has been tampered with”? For someone who says they don’t want to sound like Trump that is a rather Trumpian trope.
Here is your proof from NYT. Scroll down to the map included within that link.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/20/us/politics/election-hispanics-asians-voting.html
More important is the fact that you assume diverse areas aren’t conservative. That in itself is more telling of your opinion and beliefs than facts and data.
Does Eric Adams sounds “Trumpian” as well?
https://pix11.com/news/politics/new-york-elections/adams-holds-small-lead-over-garcia-after-1st-ranked-choice-voting-results-in-nyc-mayoral-race/
After 3.5 years of the left clammoring about Russia meddling in our election and DT not winning legitimately you’re now convinced the election was completed without interference or suspicious activity? LOL; what a crock and in line with the Dems point of view which is “Good for me but not for thee” approach to nearly everything.